The Passion of the Balkans

Seldom has modern jazz been so lively as it is with the young singer Elina Duni. Born in Albania, Duni dips the folk songs of her native country in contemporary jazz of the highest quality. Melodies full of longing and spirited rhythms from the Balkans meet sensitive, jazzy acoustic contours. But above all, the agile and moving voice of Elina Duni stands out. With her quartet, she has created her own,

passionate genre. Her second album Lume, Lume bears witness to this, dazzlingly.

Elina Duni has rummaged deep in the folk-song chest of the Balkans and found pieces that make her new album Lume, Lume (World, World) an interdisciplinary vision of Balkan folklore. The songs on Lume, Lume stem from Albania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece and Romania. In a very moving wa y, they tell of the great topics that guide us as humans: Kënga e Qamiles is a lamentation of love from Albania, the title piece Lume, Lume thematizes the transience of life from a Romanian point of view, and the Turkish Ha buander sevdaluk, in turn, tells of the separation of two lovers by migration – love, death and freedom.

Elina Duni sings the songs in their original languages. Her savoir-faire in – believe it or not – seven languages on Lume, lume is, however, only a part of her highly virtuosic exhibition on this album. She adds new edges to the old melodies with sensitivity and thus reveals herself to be a great jazz singer, one who masters a huge repertoire of atmospheres: her interpretations are both longing and mellifluous, but also tantalizing and blazing. This doesn’t only appear on the CD, but also – and much more – on the stage, as the 28-year-old lina Duni is an exceptionally gifted live performer.

Even stronger than on her first album Baresha (2008, Meta Records), Elina Duni and her three co-musicians, Colin Vallon, Patrice Moret and Norbert Pfammatter, celebrate an extremely complete, compact band sound on Lume, Lume. Not only are the experience and creativity of these internationally renowned instrumentalists reflected in their sound, but the group also creates touching atmospheres. In the quartet, they dance around the old Balkan melodies with acoustic structures, which are at time airy and

groovy, gnarly or deeply grounded. With feeling and a natural freshness they follow the emotions embedded in the songs. In this way, both a jazz emerges that gets under your skin and Balkan folk that has never before been so contemporar y.

Urs Gilgen